Square One
by BethSHeartbeat
Summary: Set after the Zax wedding explosion, Zoe wakes up in hospital and has a lot of thinking to do. Will it lead her to a life with Max or breaking away entirely?


Square One

The lights went out on the ward to allow those who were on it to go to sleep. Day and night seemed to be the only certain thing in her life at that moment and yet sleep eluded her. Lights out marked the end to yet another day that she'd spent on her own, something that was purely her own fault.  
After waking up in hospital following her disastrous wedding day, she'd sent everybody away, including her new husband. It turned out what everyone said was true, a near death experience really does cause you to rethink your life and there was now one particular thing that weighed on her mind, her relationship with Max.

Everyday he'd try to visit and every day she continued to refuse visitors, she knew how much he loved her and she simply couldn't deny that she loved him too. It always came back to how different they were though, the age gap, difference in status, difference in salary and pretty much anything else. A minority of their family members actually approved of the relationship and even some of their colleagues and friends saw them as ill-matched. Zoe had known all of this before she'd married him but suddenly it mattered a lot more than it ever had before. She knew she had a choice to make, she could start her married live with Max and hope they were happy or she could break away now.

As a child she'd always been sure that marriage was on the cards for her, she was determined to find a husband and settle down, however life got in the way. Drinking, partying and one night stands had become her reality as she got through university and qualified as a doctor. As she went from one short term relationship to another, it was then that she realised that perhaps commitment wasn't for her. Nick Jordan changed that. On paper they were perfect for one another, she had loved him and at one point she'd have even gone as far as to call him the love of her life. She'd gotten engaged to him but even that didn't work, it was just further confirmation that Zoe Hanna did not do commitment. That was until Max turned up.

Max was everything Zoe had once been, he slept around and enjoyed the care free life. He was the opposite to Nick and yet she found herself falling for him and after a tricky year long relationship they'd gotten engaged and three weeks later, married. They shouldn't have worked, it defied every odd going and yet they continued to go from strength to strength and she considered him the love of her life. It was different to being with Nick, she could completely be herself but sometimes she felt she was mothering him and that worried her. The thought of spending the rest of her life with Max was one that filled her with happiness and fear at the same time. She loved Max more than she could put into words and yet she was scared of the commitment and of messing things up. The problem was that she'd gotten married without having thought through these things and now she could either,r live happily with Max and deal with any problems that arose from that, or have two failed engagements and a divorce under her belt at 40 years old.

Deep down she knew that these doubts had been there for a while, she'd known that they should have slowed down. They'd rushed into a marriage that they had both had their doubts about, it wasn't that they weren't crazy about each other but about the speed at which they were going. Max's proposal had been a reaction to what had happened on the day it'd happened rather than a planned decision to ask Zoe to become his wife. She half wondered why they'd rushed through planning a wedding and got married three weeks later, but figured that subconsciously they'd decided together to prevent them changing their minds.  
After the proposal they'd both been on cloud nine, none of the bad things even entered her mind as they celebrated the milestone in their relationship. As the day wore on doubts began to creep through both of them, until a party thrown by their friends made everything better for a while longer.  
The wedding day itself was not without a hitch, she'd been a little late to the church, Max had stormed out thinking she wasn't coming, they'd argued over something she couldn't quite remember and then got married. The reception went equally as badly as Greta Miller, the cause of many doubts, had turned up. Max got drunk, had a fight while Zoe tried to leave, only to find the boat she'd been escaping on explode. If she believed in superstition then she'd have seen it as a sign that they weren't meant to be together, Zoe Hanna, believer in science, instead believed that it was just a freak event.  
As she leaned towards a life without Max, she thought back to last time she left him. He'd been a major reason for her departure, their secret affair had been becoming more serious and she hadn't been sure how to deal with it. She remembered the heartbroken look on Max's face as she told him she was leaving, she remembered the lost expression on his face she saw pictures from while she was gone, even the memory broke her heart. Just thinking of Max hurting made her hurt too, it was unbearable. Thinking back to the time she'd left Holby, she remembered fighting every instinct to not turn and run back to Max as she left, an instinct that she knew she couldn't fight again. She remembered how heartbroken she'd felt while she was away from him, it had been like a kind of depression as she tried to face life without him. No matter what her head told her, her heart would never let her give up Max and it was then that she realised that no matter what problems her head threw up, she didn't want to give Max up.

Zoe quietly got out of bed and rummaged through her bag for her phone, being careful not to wake anybody around her.  
"Max, meet me out the front of the ED." Zoe text her new husband, and sat waiting for a reply.  
"You're still ill in hospital, we are not meeting outside its cold. Let's meet in the relatives' room on your ward." Max replied, moments later.  
Moving slowly out of her bed and towards the relatives' room of the ward, she was trying to be careful not to attract any attention.  
"Dr Hanna, what are you doing out of bed?" The friendly nurse, who she'd spoken to a lot, asked her.  
"I need to save my marriage, I know visitors aren't allowed but can you please let Max in when he arrives." Zoe pleaded, knowing that this was the make or break of her marriage.  
"Okay. You have to stay relatively quiet though." The nurse told her, "I'll let him through but go and sit down." She told Zoe as she saw Max out the door.

"She's in the relatives' room, you need to be relatively quiet because the rest of the ward is asleep." The nurse explained to Max.  
"Thank you." Max replied, eager to see his wife who he'd not seen in three days.  
"She's fragile, she's not slept since she got up here. Anytime anyone sees her, you're all she talks about, she loves you a lot." The nurse told Max as he walked towards the relatives' room.

He opened the door, only to see Zoe sat in the corner with her hospital gown and his Holby hoodie over the top. Her eyes looked sunken and dark against her paler skin and yet she seemed wide awake.  
"Max." She whispered, her eyes clouding over with tears. He immediately walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her. "I've missed you."  
"I've missed you too Zo'. How are you feeling?"  
"Honestly?" She asked, and studied his face for a second as he nodded. "Awful."  
"I'm not surprised, they said you hadn't slept since you've been in." Max said softly.  
"I've been busy thinking." Zoe explained.  
"And I guess that's why you wouldn't see me?" Max guessed, he was clearly anxious about where this conversation was going but he was thrilled that Zoe was finally talking to him again.  
"Near death experiences make you rethink everything. I thought through every aspect of my life but most of it came back to you. I had to figure out what I wanted."  
"And have you decided?" Max asked nervously and watched as Zoe nodded.  
"I want you, I want to give our marriage a go. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, and I'm not saying there won't be problems along the way but I'm willing to put up with anything if you're by my side. I need to stop listening to my head and go with my heart. So if you still want me, then I'm yours Max."  
"Of course I'm still want you. I've had a lot of time on my own to think as well, the flat is empty without you and my life is dull. I love you Zoe Walker."  
"And I love you Max Walker."  
"Now that's sorted, you're not going to turn me away every day still are you?"  
"No, I don't want to be here Max. I can't sleep without you next to me."  
"You manage when we're on opposite shifts." Max pointed out, thrilled that he'd gotten his wife back.  
"That's different. Don't leave me Max."  
"I don't want to but the sooner you're better you can get out of here and we can start working through everything. Right now you need to go back to bed." Max told her, worried about how exhausted she was looking.  
"Promise me you'll be back here in the morning."  
"I promise."  
"I love you Max." Zoe whispered as she moved slightly to kiss him, having missed the taste of his lips in the past few days.  
"I love you too Zo."


End file.
